Reading Comprehension: Text No. 1

After so many study guides, so many practice tests and proficiency and achievement tests, it would have been impossible for us not to learn something, but we forgot everything almost right away and, I’m afraid, for good. The thing that we did learn, and to perfection—the thing that we would remember for the rest of our lives—was how to copy on tests. Here I could easily ad-lib an homage to the cheat sheet, all the test material reproduced in tiny but legible script on a minuscule bus ticket. But that admirable workmanship would have been worth very little if we hadn’t also had the all-important skill and audacity when the crucial moment came: the instant the teacher lowered his guard and the ten or twenty golden seconds began.

At our school in particular, which in theory was the strictest in Chile, it turned out that copying was fairly easy, since many of the tests were multiple choice. We still had years to go before taking the Academic Aptitude Test and applying to university, but our teachers wanted to familiarize us right away with multiple-choice exercises, and although they designed up to four different versions of every test, we always found a way to pass information along. We didn’t have to write anything or form opinions or develop any ideas of our own; all we had to do was play the game and guess the trick. Of course we studied, sometimes a lot, but it was never enough. I guess the idea was to lower our morale. Even if we did nothing but study, we knew that there would always be two or three impossible questions. We didn’t complain. We got the message: cheating was just part of the deal.

I think that, thanks to our cheating, we were able to let go of some of our individualism and become a community. It’s sad to put it like that, but copying gave us solidarity. Every once in a while we suffered from guilt, from the feeling that we were frauds—especially when we looked ahead to the future—but our indolence and defiance prevailed.

We didn’t have to take religion—the grade didn’t affect our averages—but getting out of it was a long bureaucratic process, and Mr. Segovia’s classes were really fun. He’d go on and on in an endless soliloquy about any subject but religion; his favorite, in fact, was sex, and the teachers at our school he wanted to have it with. Every class we’d do a quick round of confessions: each of us had to disclose a sin, and after listening to all forty-five—which ranged from I kept the change to I want to grab my neighbor’s tits and I jacked off during recess, always a classic—the teacher would tell us that none of our sins were unforgivable.

I think it was Cordero who confessed one day that he had copied someone’s answers in math, and since Segovia didn’t react we all contributed variations of the same: I copied on the Spanish test, on the science test, on the P.E. test (laughter), and so on. Segovia, suppressing a smile, said that he forgave us, but that we had to make sure we didn’t get caught, because that would really be unforgivable. Suddenly, though, he became serious. “If you are all so dishonest at twelve,” he said, “at forty you’re going to be worse than the Covarrubias twins.” We asked him who the Covarrubias twins were, and he looked as if he were going to tell us, but then he thought better of it. We kept at him, but he didn’t want to explain. Later, we asked other teachers and even the guidance counsellor, but no one wanted to tell us the story. The reasons were diffuse: it was a secret, a delicate subject, possibly something that would damage the school’s impeccable reputation. We soon forgot the matter, in any case.

Five years later, it was 1993 and we were seniors. One day, when Cordero, Parraguez, little Carlos, and I were playing hooky, we ran into Mr. Segovia coming out of the Tarapacá pool hall. He wasn’t a teacher anymore; he was a Metro conductor now, and it was his day off. He treated us to Coca-Colas, and ordered a shot of pisco for himself, though it was early to start drinking. It was then that he finally told us the story of the Covarrubias twins.

Covarrubias family tradition dictated that the firstborn son should be named Luis Antonio, but when Covarrubias senior found out that twins were on the way he decided to divide his name between them. During their first years of life, Luis and Antonio Covarrubias enjoyed—or suffered through—the excessively equal treatment that parents tend to give to twins: the same haircut, the same clothes, the same class in the same school.

When the twins were ten years old, Covarrubias senior installed a partition in their room, and he sawed cleanly through the old bunk bed to make two identical single beds. The idea was to give the twins a certain amount of privacy, but the change wasn’t all that significant, because they still talked through the partition every night before falling asleep. They inhabited different hemispheres now, but it was a small planet.

When the twins were twelve they entered the National Institute, and that was their first real separation. Since the seven hundred and twenty incoming seventh graders were distributed randomly, the twins were placed in different classes for the first time ever. They felt pretty lost in that school, which was so huge and impersonal, but they were strong and determined to persevere in their new lives. Despite the relentless avalanche of looks and stupid jokes from their classmates (“I think I’m seeing double!”), they always met at lunch to eat together.

At the end of seventh grade, they had to choose between fine art and music; they both chose art, in the hope that they’d be placed together, but they were out of luck. At the end of eighth grade, when they had to choose between French and English, they planned to go with French, which, as the minority choice, would practically insure that they’d be in the same class. But, after a sermon from Covarrubias senior about the importance of knowing English in today’s savage and competitive world, they gave in. Things went no better for them in their freshman and sophomore years, when students were grouped based on ranking, even though they both had good grades.

For their junior year, the twins chose a humanities focus, and finally they were together: in Class 3-F. Being classmates again after four years apart was fun and strange. Their physical similarity was still extraordinary, although acne had been cruel to Luis’s face, and Antonio was showing signs of wanting to stand out: his hair was long, or what passed for long back then, and the layer of gel that plastered it back gave him a less conventional appearance than his brother’s. Luis kept the classic cut, military style, his hair two fingers above his shirt collar, as the regulations stipulated. Antonio also wore wider pants and, defying the rules, often went to school in black tennis shoes instead of dress shoes.

The twins sat together during the first months of the school year. They protected and helped each other, though when they fought they seemed to hate each other, which, of course, is the most natural thing in the world: there are moments when we hate ourselves, and if we have someone in front of us who is almost exactly like us our hate is inevitably directed toward that person. But around the middle of the year, for no obvious reason, their fights became harsher, and, at the same time, Antonio lost all interest in his studies. Luis’s life, on the other hand, continued along its orderly path. He kept his record spotless, and his grades were very good; in fact, he was first in his class that year. Incredibly, his brother was last and would have to repeat the grade, and that was how the twins’ paths diverged again.

There was only one school counsellor for more than four thousand students, but he took an interest in the twins’ case and called their parents in for a meeting. He offered the theory, not necessarily true, that Antonio had been driven by an unconscious desire (the counsellor explained to them, quickly and accurately, exactly what the unconscious was) not to be in the same class as his brother.

Luis sailed through his senior year with excellent grades, and he got outstanding scores on all the university entrance tests, especially History of Chile and Social Studies, on which he nearly got the highest score in the nation. He entered the University of Chile to study law, on a full scholarship.

The twins were never as distant from each other as they were during Luis’s first months in college. Antonio was jealous when he saw his brother leaving for the university, free now of his uniform, while he was still stuck in high school. Some mornings their schedules coincided, but thanks to a tacit and elegant agreement—some version, perhaps, of the famous twin telepathy—they never boarded the same bus.

They avoided each other, barely greeting each other, though they knew that their estrangement couldn’t last forever. One night, when Luis was already in his second semester of law, Antonio started talking to him again through the partition. “How’s college?” he asked.

“In what sense?”

“The girls,” Antonio clarified.

“Oh, there are some really hot girls,” Luis replied, trying not to sound boastful.

“Yeah, I know there are girls, but how do you do it?”

“How do we do what?” said Luis, who, deep down, knew exactly what his brother was asking.

“How do you fart with girls around?”

“Well, you just have to hold it in,” Luis answered.

They spent that night, as they had when they were children, talking and laughing while they competed with their farts and their burps, and from then on they were once again inseparable. They kept up the illusion of independence, especially from Monday to Friday, but on weekends they always went out together, matched each other drink for drink, and played tricks switching places, taking advantage of the fact that, thanks to Luis’s newly long hair and now clear skin, their physical resemblance was almost absolute again.

Antonio’s academic performance had improved a great deal, but he still wasn’t a model student and toward the end of his senior year he began to get anxious. Though he felt prepared for the aptitude test, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to score high enough to study law at the University of Chile, like his brother. The idea was Antonio’s, naturally, but Luis accepted right away, without blackmail or conditions, and without an ounce of fear, since at no point did he consider it possible that they would be found out. In December of that year, Luis Covarrubias registered, presenting his brother Antonio’s I.D. card, to take the test for the second time, and he gave it his all. He tried so hard that he got even better scores than he had the year before: in fact, he received the nation’s highest score on the Social Studies test.

“But none of us have twin brothers,” Cordero said that afternoon, when Segovia finished his story. It may have been drizzling or raining, I don’t remember, but I know that the teacher was wearing a blue raincoat. He got up to buy cigarettes, and when he came back to our table he stayed on his feet, maybe to reëstablish a protocol that had been lost: the teacher stands, the students sit. “You’ll still come out ahead,” he told us. “You all don’t know how privileged you are.”

“Because we go to the National Institute?” I asked.

He puffed anxiously on his cigarette, perhaps already somewhat drunk, and he was silent for so long that it was no longer necessary to answer me, but then an answer came. “The National Institute is rotten, but the world is rotten,” he said. “They prepared you for this, for a world where everyone fucks everyone over. You’ll do well on the test, very well, don’t worry: you all weren’t educated; you were trained.” It sounded aggressive, but there was no contempt in his tone, or, at least, none directed at us.

We were quiet; it was late by then, almost nighttime. He sat down, looking absorbed, thoughtful. “I didn’t get a high score,” he said, when it seemed that there wouldn’t be any more words. “I was the best in my class, in my whole school. I never cheated on an exam, but I bombed the aptitude test, so I had to study religious pedagogy. I didn’t even believe in God.”

I asked him if now, as a Metro conductor, he earned more money. “Twice as much,” he replied. I asked him if he believed in God now, and he answered that yes, now more than ever, he believed in God. I never forgot, I’ll never forget his gesture then: with a lit cigarette between his index and middle fingers, he looked at the back of his hand as if searching for his veins, and then he turned it over, as if to make sure that his life, head, and heart lines were still there.

We said goodbye as if we were or had once been friends. He went into the cinema, and we headed down Bulnes toward Parque Almagro to smoke a few joints.

I never heard anything more about Segovia. Sometimes, in the Metro, when I get into the first car, I look toward the conductor’s booth and imagine that our teacher is in there, pressing buttons and yawning. As for the Covarrubias twins, they’ve gained a certain amount of fame, and, as I understand it, they never separated again. They became identical lawyers; I hear that it’s hard to tell which is the more brilliant and which the more corrupt. They have a firm in Vitacura, and they charge the same rate. They charge what such good service is worth: a lot.

Questions:

According to the text, the Covarrubias twins’ experience in their new school:

(A) Marked their final break with the values that their parents had instilled in them.

(B) Was traumatic, because it forced them to make rash decisions and separated them for good.

(C) Gradually shaped them into individuals who would be useful in Chilean society.

(D) Transformed two good and supportive brothers into unscrupulous sons of bitches.

(E) Marked the start of a difficult period, from which they emerged stronger and ready to compete in this ruthless and materialistic world.

The best title for this story would be:

(A) “How to Train Your Twin”

(B) “To Sir, with Love”

(C) “Me and My Shadow”

(D) “Against Lawyers”

(E) “Against Twin Lawyers”

Regarding multiple-choice tests, the author affirms that:

I. They were in standard use at that particular school in order to prepare students for the university entrance exams.

II. It was easier to cheat on those tests, any way you looked at it.

III. They did not require you to develop your own thinking.

IV. With multiple-choice tests, the teachers didn’t have to make themselves sick in the head by grading all weekend.

V. The correct choice is almost always D.

(A) I and II

(B) I, III, and V

(C) II and V

(D) I, II, and III

(E) I, II, and IV

The fact that Mr. Luis Antonio Covarrubias divided his name between his twin sons indicates that he was:

(A) Innovative

(B) Ingenious

(C) Unbiased

(D) Masonic

(E) Moronic

One can infer from the text that the teachers at the school:

(A) Were mediocre and cruel, because they adhered unquestioningly to a rotten educational model.

(B) Were cruel and severe: they liked to torture the students by overloading them with homework.

(C) Were deadened by sadness, because they got paid shit.

(D) Were cruel and severe, because they were sad. Everyone was sad back then.

(E) My bench mate marked C, so I’m going to mark C as well.

From this text, one understands that:

(A) The students copied on tests because they lived under a dictatorship, and that justified everything.

(B) Copying on tests isn’t so bad as long as you’re smart about it.

(C) Copying on tests is part of the learning process for any human being.

(D) The students with the worst scores on the university entrance exams often become religion teachers.

(E) Religion teachers are fun, but they don’t necessarily believe in God.

The purpose of this story is:

(A) To suggest a possible work opportunity for Chilean students who perform well academically but are poor (there aren’t many, but they do exist): they could take tests for students who are lazy and rich.

(B) To expose security problems in the administration of the university entrance exams, and also to promote a business venture related to biometric readings, or some other system for definitively verifying the identity of students.

(C) To promote an expensive law firm. And to entertain.

(D) To legitimate the experience of a generation that could be summed up as “a band of cheaters.” And to entertain.

(E) To erase the wounds of the past.

Which of Mr. Segovia’s following statements is, in your opinion, true?